Unstoppable

Laura Hillenbrand, author of Unbroken, talks about sports, finding Louie, saving stories, and living with an incurable disease.

Your past two books have dealt with subjects who are superstar athletes—what attracts you to their stories?I'm a big sports fan. I find athleticism so compelling, whether it's a horse or a human. Some of it, too, is that I'm disabled, and I like to live through my subjects. What better subject to live through than one who has these magnificent capacities physically that I don't have? That's part of the reason it's so satisfying for me. I can climb out of this body and get into that one.

Were you interested in or did you follow running at all before this book?I wasn't a runner when I was well, and I didn't know much about it. I just enjoyed watching it. When the World Championships are on or when the Olympics are on, I watch all the track events. I love that sort of thing.

Do you follow running now?A little more closely. I know more about what I'm seeing, which makes it more interesting. In Louie's Olympic race, he ran his last lap in 56 seconds, which meant nothing to me before. Now, when I'm watching the 5000-meter races and I see how quickly someone is running the last lap, I have it in context. But I'm a long way from being an expert.

Is there any runner that you've been following?I've always been a fan of the 100-meter men and women. This is a fantastic time to watch the 100-meter men with Usain Bolt, Tyson Gay, and people like that. I love the sprints.

What draws you to sport?I think the most essential thing about sport is the beauty of it, when you're taking the body to its extreme and seeing how far it can be stretched. It's beautiful to watch a body that's working perfectly. I find it exhilarating to see speed, to see the risk of it, and the power these people generate. I spend all my time sitting in a chair, and to watch somebody move faster than I can believe, it's exhilarating.

What do you enjoy about competition?It's thrilling to watch athletes measure themselves against each other. To watch how individuals react to surprises, to the strengths of others, and how they psychologically work against one another. There's so much going on.

How did you first encounter Louie?I was in the middle of researching Seabiscuit, and I kept coming across stuff about this kid named Louis Zamperini. He and Seabiscuit were both Californians and really famous at the same time; they were always on the same sports pages. Running was big in the '30s—almost as big as thoroughbred racing—so Louie got a lot of coverage. One day, I was reading an original clipping about Seabiscuit in a California newspaper. I turned the page over and there was an article about Louis Zamperini. It was prior to the war, but so many things had already happened to him. He was such a compelling personality. I wrote his name down in my Seabiscuit notebook. I looked at it every day and thought, Someday, I'm going to look into this guy. Once I was done with Seabiscuit, I wrote Louie a letter. He wrote back, and I knew I had my next book subject.

What were your impressions of Louie as an athlete and competitor?He was remarkably dedicated to his training. He'd been this terrible juvenile delinquent. He was just an incorrigible boy, but all the rebellion in him was channeled into track once he figured out how good he was. Then he was an absolute straight arrow. He turned everything into training—his paper route, his run to school, going swimming at the local pool where he'd hold onto the grid at the bottom and hold his breath and try to improve his lung capacity. He also studied other runners very carefully. He was fanatically devoted to Glenn Cunningham, who was the biggest running sensation of the age, and studied everything he did. And he was a very tenacious competitor. Louie is a very self-confident man; I think he always believed he could win—and he did almost every time.

In 1932, Louie spent the summer on an Indian reservation, where he discovered his love for running. Previously, he'd viewed running as work—what changed for him?As a boy, Louie resented any controls put on him. So when Pete [Louie's brother] wanted him to run, that was what Pete wanted. So Louie fought it. When he went out to that ranch, there was no one telling him what to do. He started running, and I think it brought him psychological peace. He'd been a very turbulent-minded boy; he didn't like himself very much. He found that when he ran, that need to be rebellious and that turbulence went away. He realized his body was doing what it was born to do. Pete said Louie came home obsessed with running; it was his whole life from that day forward.

What was Louie's demeanor like when you talked to him about his running career?I think his years as a runner are very happy memories for him. His memory is absolutely extraordinary; he has the best memory of anybody I've come across. He'd recall a race in 1932 and remember it down to the fifth of a second—I would cross-check everything he said, and he'd be right! I think that was his heyday. In his mind, he was on his way to an Olympic gold medal and the four-minute mile. He was probably right, had the war not come along.

Are there any stories of Louie's running that were left out of the book?During basic training for the army, the men had to do daylong Saturday hikes. They would fill their backpacks and hike about 20 miles. Louie was in fantastic shape, so he would run around the parade ground in front of his CO. The CO let him out of those hikes and Louie spent Saturdays at the local theater wooing a girl he liked. Louie was also a really big fan of Seabiscuit. The horse ran on Saturdays, and Louie tended to run on Saturdays as well. Louie would listen to Seabiscuit's races on the radio then tailor his strategy to whatever Seabiscuit had done—if Seabiscuit went out and took the early lead, Louie would go out and take the early lead. He was inspired by this horse, as everybody in America was, so he modeled his races after him.

Did running play a role later in his life?Just as pleasure. But when he was in his 60s, he was still running a six-minute mile. He's always doing something physical. He's in amazing shape. I'm sure he's immortal.

You have interviewed many people near the end of their lives—how do you feel when some of your sources don't live long enough to see your books?That keeps happening. Thirteen people died before Seabiscuit came out. It breaks my heart. They're the ones who are the storytellers. I'm writing it down, I'm shaping it and sequencing it, but it's their story and I'm very sorry they haven't lived to see it.

You must take comfort in knowing it gave them some joy to talk about these things.Talking to elderly people about their youth just seems to have become my career. People often say, "You know, my kids were never interested in this," or, "No one ever asked me this." I've gone into interviews thinking, gosh, this guy is 97, he's not going to be able to last too long—and we'll end up talking for three hours. The person just has so much to say. They're happy to talk. So that's a joy. And knowing you're catching stories that are important to them and enabling them to live on through these stories, that means a lot.

What's next for you?I'm very sick, unfortunately. That's what I'm looking at right now. I'm suffering from vertigo, which is a nightmare. It inhibits my vision a great deal. Unless this gets better, I can't write another book. I really can't write anything.

Was writing this book traumatic on your body?I had a relapse in 2007—thank goodness after I'd done all the interviews. My book was due in 2007, but I had a massive relapse and almost never got down the stairs for a year and a half. I was too weak. I didn't leave the house for two years. The vertigo got much worse. It's been a nightmare.

Did you recover a little from that relapse?I did. I'm a lot stronger than I was. I'm not real strong, but I'm able to get around my house and I can get out. But now that I'm so dizzy, it's controlling everything I do.

For your next book, would you like to stay in this era?The 1930s feel so familiar to me, I feel positive that I've lived in them. With Seabiscuit, I read entire newspapers from the '30s to get a real feel for those years—like what stuff cost, what people were wearing, what the music was like. Now that I've written Unbroken, which largely takes place in the same era, it's very familiar to me. It just feels like, well, that's my day. Unfortunately, people get older and I want to stay within living memory. That's what I enjoy the most, getting to meet these older people. Maybe the next book will be in the 50s. It's very hard to find people who remember the 30s and 40s. We'll see. Maybe I'll do the Korean War next.